MPUSD doubts seriousness of petition for new charter school

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District trustees have denied a request to approve the California Classical Language Academy Charter School, one of three charter petitions the district is scheduled to consider this year.

According to the charter's proponent, Vadim Nazarenko, the academy would offer dual language immersion for grades 8 to 12, targeting Spanish speakers.

But to MPUSD administrators, the petition was hardly serious. Ed Sklar, an attorney who advises the district in charter matters, described a document that was chaotic, incomplete and difficult to understand.

"Between the (lack of) substance of the petition and chaotic nature of the document, staff was left to question, how is this program supposed to work? What's it like on a day-to-day basis?" he said.

The petition was put together haphazardly with lots of cutting and pasting, no proofreading and buzzwords, concepts and philosophies patched together in a non-coherent way, Sklar said.

In his petition, Nazarenko said he wanted to introduce Mandarin and Russian into the curriculum, but there was no discussion of what that would look like, Sklar said.

"There were also inconsistencies in the text itself in regard to the education program," he said. "There was also a four-year graduation requirement of Spanish literature, but none of the course descriptions had a Spanish literature program."

Nazarenko does not appear to be serious about opening a school, Sklar said, because he has not established a nonprofit organization, which is the typical first step a nonprofit charter operator must take.

Neither Nazarenko nor supporters of the proposed charter appeared to be present at Monday's meeting.

The last time MPUSD officials denied a charter petition was in December 2011, when they offered conditional approval to CORAL Academy. CORAL proponents decided to take their chances with the Monterey County Office of Education, where they were rejected without an offer of conditional approval. CORAL representatives appealed to the State Board of Education, where staff recommended their petition be denied. The group eventually dissolved.

In January 2011, MPUSD rejected approval of the Bay View Academy charter, a school that formed after district officials closed a popular school in a tightly knit community. The Monterey County Office of Education went on to approve that school.

Administrators seem to be reconsidering their positions on charters, at least when it comes to dependent charters, which are closely tied to the district. Two are in the pipeline: the Dual Language Charter School at Marshall West Elementary School in Seaside and the Marine Academy of Oceanographic Science at Monterey High School, whose teachers recently announced their desire to open an independent school.